First day-night County championship game between Kent and Glamorgan fails to wow crowds

Pink balls could be the future - or should that be fuchsia? - of Test cricket,
but they are unlikely to replace red ones in the County Championship,
despite being used for a first-class match in England for the first time on
Monday.

In the pink: the first day-night county game between at KentPhoto: AP

By Huw Turbervill

8:58PM BST 12 Sep 2011

That is according to the MCC’s head of cricket, John Stephenson, who has been a pioneer of pink and was a proud spectator.

Neither Kent nor Glamorgan can achieve promotion, so they agreed to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s request to be guinea pigs, allowing the first day-night championship game to proceed, under a full moon.

“I was pleased when I heard about this match, but my concerns were: the time of year, the dew factor, and if it would be freezing cold for players and spectators,” said Stephenson.

“In England you probably don’t need evening cricket in the longer game, because we get decent crowds for Tests. But it’s about rejuvenating Test attendances elsewhere in the world.”

An area of interest for the ECB is whether crowds in county games receive a boost from the arrival of people who work nine to five, with play here scheduled from 2pm-9pm.

The floodlights came on at 5.30pm, and the sun set at 7.17pm, but it was blustery and cold and September is not ideal for such an experiment.

Kent chief executive Jamie Clifford acknowledged the late notice for the change had been tricky, but said he believed it had not affected the crowd.

Perhaps worryingly for him later, there did not appear to be a stampede - or even trickle - of spectators entering after tea.

Not all his membership had been tickled pink, he acknowledged. Many were supportive; others complained that they did not want to miss dinner, or travel home by train or car in the dark.

The pink ball appears easier to see than the red, although you would not necessarily have known that watching Kent bat. Joe Denly and Geraint Jones stood out as the former England players that they are.

Strangely, considering it was a newly-cut pitch, the hosts’ top order succumbed to spin. Dean Cosker came on as early as the seventh over (although that may have been because of the 25mph gusts) and struck with his first delivery.

There was ample turn, but this was not down to the ball. Pink balls do not turn more. For this match Tiflex (the normal provider of Division Two balls) is supplying the balls for the first innings, with Kookaburras used second time around.

Apparently that is because there is a limited supply of Tiflex balls. The match-up will be interesting, as the Tiflex ones have dyed pink leather, while the Kookaburras use the same lacquer known to chip off the white versions in one-day internationals.

The pink ball’s visibility in the ‘Twilight Zone’ has been an issue in the Abu Dhabi encounters between the MCC and the county champions. Kent’s Adam Ball scored 26 either side of tea, and had some interesting observations.

“The ball came on to the bat better after tea because of the dew,” he said.

“The visibility was fine. The big difference with the red ball is that you can get a good shine on them and they usually swing until 40-50 overs. The pink one hasn’t really swung. It also went soft quite quickly.

“The players prefer the 11am starts. I guess it’s routine. We were thrown in at the deep end. The players didn’t get a chance to put forward their views. Some of them thought the stats from this shouldn’t be counted because it’s different to what’s been played the rest of the season.”